Dell said Mugabe was cleverer than any other politician in Zimbabwe

United States ambassador to Zimbabwe Christopher Dell, whose mission was to allegedly to oust President Robert Mugabe, said a day before he left the country that Mugabe has survived for so long because he was “more clever and more ruthless than any other politician in Zimbabwe”.

“To give the devil his due, he is a brilliant tactitian and has long thrived on his ability to abruptly change the rules of the game, radicalize the political dynamic and force everyone else to react to his agenda,” Dell said in his famous cable entitled, the End is nigh.

The ambassador said Mugabe was fundamentally hampered by several factors:

his ego and belief in his own infallibility;

his obsessive focus on the past as a justification for everything in the present and future;

his deep ignorance on economic issues (coupled with the belief that his 18 doctorates give him the authority to suspend the laws of economics, including supply and demand);

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The Insider is a political and business bulletin about Zimbabwe, edited by Charles Rukuni. Founded in 1990, it was a printed 12-page subscription only newsletter until 2003 when Zimbabwe's hyper-inflation made it impossible to continue printing.